Go 2 Guy: Renton students left out

TACOMA -- Investigative journalists never know where they'll find their next intriguing story. That's what motivates them to dig and work a hell of a lot harder than me.

By contrast, using slacker savvy, I found mine at the end of my driveway in the King County Journal on Wednesday.

Dean A. Radford wrote the newspaper's lead story about Renton High School students needing a 3.3 grade-point average, among other things, to watch the Indians' first-round game in the Class 3A state basketball tournament Wednesday morning.

Students also could not have any missing assignments or more than two missed classes this semester.

Anyone who did not meet these requirements, which was just about everyone, had to stay in school.

Reaction ranged from "right on, academics should be stressed ahead of athletics" to "you've got to be kidding, if players only need a 2.0 GPA to play, students should only need a 2.0 to watch them."

Craig Cooper and Ed Crow are assistant principals at Renton who watched the Indians' 56-49 victory over Squalicum.

They stood courtside wearing red T-shirts, Cooper's saying: "Pride, Tradition, Excellence" on the back of his.

Pride, tradition and excellence probably refer to classroom stuff, but Renton's basketball legacy is much heralded, highlighted by the longtime success of coach Irv Leifer.

Emerald Downs president and Huskies booster Ron Crockett was there to help connect the past with the present. A 1957 Renton alum, Crockett played for Leifer and gave the Indians a pregame pep talk.

The Renton cheerleaders cheered in front of about 30 to 40 students from their own school and more than that from North Central, which was playing O'Dea in the next game.

Of those 30 to 40 from a student body of nearly 1,100, several weren't supposed to be there according to Crow, but they came anyway with unexcused absences, which is not unusual.

But on Wednesday, should students have been allowed to skip a few classes to support their team, an unbeaten team ranked No. 1 in the state, regardless of their GPA?

Among other administrators, Crow and Cooper said no, Cooper explaining: "We want the kids to do well in the classroom."

Asked how they came up with 3.3 as opposed to 3.0 or even 2.5, Crow said: "We talked about a lot of different things, and this is what we came up with."

But what about the players -- according to point guard Dante Calcote, no one on the team had a 3.3 or higher.

"The players worked all year to earn the right; it's been a special group of guys," Crow said. "I don't know if it's the same thing as coming down to root for a game."

Coach Rick Comer, who played for George Raveling at WSU, indicated he was not fully supportive of the administration's stance, but between his hoarseness and my deafness, I'm not exactly sure what he said.

"I thought it was terrible," said Calcote. "That was discrimination right there."

Calcote was in his "Principles of Technology" class on Monday when he heard the news. Students' heads dropped.

"Everybody was saying, 'You won't have two fans in the stands,' " Calcote said.

He thinks it's good that principal Kathryn Hutchinson emphasizes academics, "but at a time like this, when you've got a team that's 24-0, which hasn't been done in many years? Something like this, you should enjoy while it lasts."

A 1975 Renton graduate, Manly Grinolds, rattled administrative cages with phone calls Tuesday, protesting the standards, saying: "They need to make the game more accessible to students. It's an event. Ten years from now, kids will be talking about the tournament. It's just neat stuff."